Life Update – Internship

Hello, how are you all? Do let me know in the comment section below.

Today, I felt the need to update you all on what has been going on in my life, cleverly, I titled this post Life Update! I know I haven’t been on my blog much, taking days to reply to your comments, days to check up on your posts and weeks if not months to answer your emails. The truth is, I’m busy and sadly blogging isn’t my job, it’s my hobby and therefore I had to put my job first and my hobby second for some time as I work away at my internship these past couple of months. Below I’ll give you a bit of a breakdown of everything I’ve been doing.

Internship:

Well, the internship is definitely what has been keeping me the most busy. Essentially, I am teaching everyday, writing lesson plans, grading papers for free…yup, I’m not being paid for this which is the biggest downfall of this whole internship but you have to do what you have to do.

I have only teach two classes which are 90 minutes each and therefore I have plenty of time at school to get most of my grading done. I’ve been teaching algebra to 8th grade students and overall I would say I am enjoying it. My cooperating teacher has really let me take full control of the class, allowing me to assign my own homework, teach the way I want, assign my own projects and tests. As amazing as it is to have the classroom to myself, it can be quite overwhelming at times when there is so much to get done and what feels like so little time.

Let me give you little insight on just how much control I have over this classroom. Two days before the school opened we had a faculty meeting at the school, this is when I discovered that my cooperating teacher hadn’t visited the school all summer because there were 43 boxes to be unpacked. The day before the first day of school I went there on my own and unpacked al the boxes and put everything away. It took me about 7 hours to complete the whole job but I certainty got it done. We have 5 bulletin boards in our room and I have decorated each one making one a positive board with inspirational quotes, one a welcoming board, one a board of key math facts to remember and two with student work on it. I have also created folders labeled with the days of the week where I place any work for those students that are absent or may lose papers frequently. I have created the expectations posters (no rules in my classroom because rulers are meant to be broken but expectations are not).

My classroom expectations are as followed:

Never give up

Be on time

Keep trying

Believe in yourself

Have confidence

I try to create a positive environment where students are encouraged to learn and believe in themselves. I have come up with all my assignments, projects, activities. Let me tell you, keeping things fun, interesting and different can be quite difficult when you have a million other things to do.

When it comes to behavior problems, I don’t really have much in the classroom, although sometimes students can get quite chatty, I suppose that is typical of the 8th grade students. I’ve had a few times where students haven’t completed their homework or projects, again, typical for students this age. I’ve also had students who have complained that I give too much work but I just tell them “The more you do, the more you learn.” – Harry Wong.

Overall, I’ve been enjoying my experience. I love it when the students are excited to see me and I love the fact that if I have to leave the room they start yelling no and want me to come back. Some of them have already told me that they don’t want me to leave in December; they want me to stay all year. Others have already invited me to their graduation. Although busy, this has been a great experience thus far and I’m interested to see where it’s going to go from here.

Any teachers out there; aspiring or current teachers? How has this year been treating you? Have any fun advice or activates to share with me? Please do.

Even if you aren’t a teacher but you have been in a classroom where you’ve really liked what a teacher has done, please do let me know what that was in the comment section below.

Those are great classroom expectations for a math class. It’s so important to instill confidence instead of being scared of the subject. Practice makes perfect, you’ve just got to never give up. You are giving these kids a foundation for the rest of their lives. I’m a college senior in computer science and I use these mathematical concepts everyday. I still remember my grade school math teachers and appreciate what they’ve given me. Respect to you.

I had a programming internship the last 2 summers. Pretty nice deal: got to learn a ton of stuff and got paid!

I am so glad you are enjoying your internship-this can be a make or break time for a lot of new teachers. I have seen the spark die when an internship, or student teaching assignment goes badly. Hang in there and I hope you continue to have fun while working so hard for no pay 🙂 !

Wooow that sounds really cool! It’s amazing that you try to make the lessons fun and different! I’m still in school and understand that teaching math to 8th graders definitely isn’t easy XD. Your class is really lucky to have you❤️

What a great post. I am a yoga teacher myself and even I have lesson plans! The amount of work schoolroom teachers do is staggering! God bless you for taking on this important work and for having such a positive attitude. I’m sure that affects the way the students feel in your class. I also love that you have “expectations” rather than “rules.” What a great idea!